


The Light We Cast

by jawsandbones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 17:31:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jawsandbones/pseuds/jawsandbones
Summary: There are some things which you cannot do alone. A study of Lavellan and Dorian.The ground has swallowed him whole. He falls upwards into the sky, his fingertips scraping the earth and leaving still. Colors rushing by as he falls past bird and cloud, spirit and demon, green and black, unable to grab hold. It is something else which slows his ascent. She reaches out, takes him by the hand, and drags him back to earth. He lands in darkness, and he lands in chains. Shackles bound around his wrist, manacles of metal, keeping him rooted to the floor. He thinks there’s something like blood upon his hand, but when he turns it to look, he finds it is not so.





	The Light We Cast

The ground has swallowed him whole. He falls upwards into the sky, his fingertips scraping the earth and leaving still. Colors rushing by as he falls past bird and cloud, spirit and demon, green and black, unable to grab hold. It is something else which slows his ascent. She reaches out, takes him by the hand, and drags him back to earth. He lands in darkness, and he lands in chains. Shackles bound around his wrist, manacles of metal, keeping him rooted to the floor. He thinks there’s something like blood upon his hand, but when he turns it to look, he finds it is not so.

There’s a yearning in the scar which slashes his palm. Foaming, drooling, snarling, full of a sick desperation to consume and devour. It hisses and oozes with pain, and Mahanon clenches his hand into a fist. He can still see that sickly glow seeping through his fingers, still feel the hunger which gnaws upon his bones, the voracity which needles at his skin. He cannot stop his hand from shaking. He cannot stop the tightness which wraps around his chest, the vise which chokes the air from his lungs.

He was – he was to go to the Conclave. He was to watch, to listen, and to learn. He knew how to stay quiet, how to blend in with the rest. He hid himself in the herd of elves, drew no notice to himself. He hated how suffocating the temple felt. He could see the remains of elven architecture which were hidden behind the repairs the humans had made. Walls of stone meant to make them feel safe, made him feel only uneasy. There was only meaningless talk the first few days. So many people, of all races, all walks.

Mahanon found it better in the camps. The small places where people gathered amongst themselves, sharing stories of home and family. He’d found warmth from more than just their fires there. There was tension, yes, the fighting and the arguing. All yelling, a few fists. Hanging over that tension was the thin strand of hope. Peace was always wanted among the lesser folk once it was lost. But for those who fought, they brought such meaning to every fight and every struggle. There was a purpose in their swords, righteousness in their staffs.

The Divine’s arrival to the temple had brought an uneasy quiet to those stone halls. She had walked a path lined with snow, lined with people. She gave a kind smile and word for all those she met, all those who stopped her. He had wondered if others had seen how her shoulders sagged with the weight of more than just simple age. She was to dispense a hard justice, broker peace between two factions that had seen such failure. Their squabbles had even brought discord to the Dalish. Too often had they heard the fighting too close to the aravels, enemies clashing in the forests they called home.

He was to return to the clan, once this Conclave had finished. Returning with news of peace, or continued war. He finds nothing where he knows days should have been. His memory stops mid-step. What had happened? He was – he was… He was to go home. He tugs at the chains, finds them unwilling to relinquish their hold on him. The metal tears into his wrists, leaves red mark after mark upon his skin. He was to go _home_. This dungeon is dark, dank, smelling of iron and far fouler things. It suffocates him as much as the temple did. Firelight flickers, wavers upon the walls.

He can’t help the gasp of pain that escapes him as the mark upon his hand forces him to open his fist. There is a void, a well of color, lightning that screams over his skin. His hand shakes as he stares at it, this nothingness filled with green, a glow that fights the firelight. For a moment he thinks he can peer through it. What he sees on the other side is not the floor of the dungeon, but a fog of horror. Shapes that move through it, eyes that gleam with red. His gaze is wrenched away from it as the door to the dungeon slams open.

The swords that guarded each corner were sheathed, and these men quickly left just as two women entered. One stands before him, a shield at her back and her hand upon the hilt of her sword. She looks at him with a face full of anger, lined with something close to fear. He closes his hand once again, as the other woman circles him. She studies him curiously, her hands clasped behind her back. Eventually she joins the other, and together they stand shoulder to shoulder, look down at him.

She grips the hilt of her sword even harder as she bends down, her face close to his. “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” she says. If the anger wasn’t already evident in her face, it becomes even clearer in her words. So this was to be an interrogation. He clenches his jaw, swallows uneasily. If only he knew what he was being interrogated for. He gives her no answer and her lip curls in disgust. “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

He thinks of the campfires. The mage girl who came because her brother was in a different Circle, and she hoped she might find him among the rebels. The one whose lover had been made Tranquil, the need to make it right burning in his chest. The Templar who meekly came to the mages with his hands outstretched, needing lyrium for the ache in his bones. Finding kindness in an old enchanter, who unclipped a vial from her belt. The lost children, frightened and alone, staying with those they know because they no longer knew what home was outside of a Circle. The one who cried as he gave his sword to another, walked into the night and never came back. He squeezes his eyes closed. All those people.

“You think I did it,” Mahanon says as he opens his eyes, tilts his face upwards to them. His words sound hollow, even to him. His shoulders sag. Could they be lying? He wracks his memory, finds only that damnable nothing. He was walking through a hallway, his hand upon cool stone. If only he knew what happened next. The only survivor of it. “Of course you think I did.” There had been only few elves who recognized him as Dalish. Wide eyes, false _vallaslin_ upon their faces, watching where he went. Perhaps they thought he was there to take them back to his clan. Perhaps they thought he was there to save them.

She reaches down, a hand over the shackle, wrenching his hand upwards. “Explain this,” she says. As if sensing the hostility, the mark ignites, burns, and tendrils of whatever it was waver in air. She throws his hand back down, and the mark sputters back into silence. “What is it?” He fears the reason they ask him, is because they do not know. He just wanted someone to tell him what was going on.

“I don’t know what it is, or how it got there.” Aching, throbbing, raw and dangerous, he can feel it like a blade being pressed into flesh. “Please,” he says and that only serves to make her angrier. She winds her fists into the front of his tunic, half lifts him from where he is kneeling.

“You’re _lying_ ,” she seethes. The other woman puts a hand upon her shoulder.

“We need him, Cassandra.” She drops him in an instant. “Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Her hand drops from Cassandra’s shoulder to behind her back once more. Cassandra is pacing, closer to the door and then back again, moving behind her, her gaze never leaving her face.

“I remember running - falling,” he says. Unable to find ground, fear in the pit of him, a hand outstretched. “And then… a woman?” The changes in her expression are subtle but there. Only half her face is visible, the hood over her head casting shadows. The smallest frown, the twitch of her lips. He wishes he was better at this. There were others more suited to spy work than him. But no, he had insisted – he had fought to go to the Conclave. He thought it would… it didn’t matter now. Now he was here.

Cassandra has moved to his back, and without looking, knows she has a hand back on that sword of hers. He recognizes the symbol emblazoned on her chest, the fiery eye of the Seekers. A branch of the Chantry. All the things he had memorized before leaving the clan quickly flood his thoughts. Cassandra would have answered to the Divine. The Divine who had attended the Conclave. A Divine now most likely dead. No wonder she was so angry with him, if she thought he had killed their leader. The mouthpiece of their god.

“A woman?” She crosses her arms as she looks at him, glances at Cassandra. He can’t recall her face.

“She reached out to me, but then…” Mahanon knows her hand was warm over his, kind despite the unkind mark she had left him with. Pulling him back down, placing him here. He sighs, head dropping, staring at his palm.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take him to the rift,” Cassandra says, moving back to her, their heads close together. Leliana does not move from where she stands, and she looks not at Cassandra, but at him. Her lips purse together, the line of her jaw tightening. After a moment, she nods and turns. Cassandra kneels down before him, key in her hand, unchains him from the floor. She leaves he shackles that bind his wrists together.

“Please, can you tell me what happened?” He asks. Her expression softens as she places the key back into her pocket, wraps a hand around his arm. She helps pull him to his feet. After spending who knows how long kneeling, his legs are sore, weak. He stumbles the first few steps, like some newborn halla, and only when he steadies does she let him go.

“It,” she says, “will be easier to show you.” Her hands on his shoulder, holding tightly, nodding when she turns. The only choice left is to follow.

The doors outside are opened for them, more guards with hard faces, and the first taste of sun is far too bright. He squints, shields his eyes, half-blinded. When it clears, when he can look properly, the first thing he sees is no sun at all. It’s a mirror, albeit a larger one, for the mark on his hand.

“We call it the Breach,” she says. He is no mage, he cannot speak for what the Fade might feel like. Looking upon the Breach, all he can feel is dread, a nameless fear. Something inside him pounds with a meaning he can’t recall. As if sensing its larger cousin, the mark on his hand trembles with something like excitement.

“It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift. Just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave,” she says. The Breach sits just over a rise of mountains. Clouds swirl about it, rocks hang about it supported by nothing. He remembers the falling, how weightless everything seemed. He imagines it is the same around the Breach. A beam, not unlike a tail, twists and curls downwards from the breach. Towards what, he cannot say. It’s all moving, pounding with a cruel heartbeat. One the mark echoes.

He thinks he might throw up. Did he do this? Did he somehow cause this? The Breach and its matching mark. How could he not have done this? It was the only answer. “An explosion.” An explosion he doesn’t remember. If the Conclave was truly destroyed then how did he survive? Unscarred, unhurt. Besides the mark on his hand, he knows he is unchanged, untouched. “Can an explosion really do that?” He wants, needs, the answers.

“This one did,” is all Cassandra can give him. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.” Away from the dungeon, he can see her clearer now. A determined woman, her back straight and shoulders squared. The line of her brow as firm as the line of her jaw. A scar crests her cheek, does not deter from the way her eyes shine. He doesn’t think she would have a reason to lie to him. A Seeker, she would want answers as much as him. He doesn’t fault her for suspecting him, for blaming him. Mahanon would too. He already blames himself.

The Breach pulses, beats, and the mark follows suit. It drags him forward in the direction of the Breach, a mouth that is hungry for its meal, reaching for the knife. It beats down the length of his arm, strangles around his chest, and drops him to his knees. It’s a pain unlike anything he’s ever felt before. The mark desperately wants to remain outstretched, his arm shaking, pulling and wanting. He forces his arm close his chest, fist tight. Light bleeds through fingers, through cracks, up and around his hand. Cassandra kneels before him.

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you,” she says. She does not mince words. It is matter-of-fact, presented calmly. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.” The mark ebbs back into silence as she speaks. He doesn’t dare unclench his fist. He didn’t take enjoyment in hunting like others from his clan. He preferred the silence of the forest, the laughter of the aravels. The feel of wood under his fingertips, feeling out the shape before he began to carve. Before today, he had thought of himself as unbloodied. The mark beats, beats, beats. He takes a deep breath, a steadying one, trying to draw air back into his lungs.

“I understand,” he says. The ground is cold under where he sits, the air much of the same. Snow is falling, drifting silently. Some of it lands in her dark hair, melts into nothingness. “I’ll do what I can. Whatever it takes.” Cassandra lets out a slow breath, and something that could almost be considered a smile plays at the edge of her lips. The relief eases through her. Again, in such a short period of time, she helps him to his feet, pushes him forward.

“The rifts and the Breach are allowing demons entrance into the waking world. A doorway from the Fade. We have been fighting them for days,” she tells him. No wonder she was so relieved at his offer to help. She and her soldiers would be exhausted, and with no end in sight… These people gathered at Haven, they would think he was guilty. That he was the one who murdered their Divine, along with countless others. Did they have family among those lost? Friends? Lovers? He wonders exactly how long it had been since the destruction of the Conclave. Since the Breach appeared.

Fighting them for days, Cassandra had said. They all hold themselves so stiffly, so rigidly. It suggests time enough for rumors of his survival to spread, time enough to stew upon the thought of him. It almost surprises him that someone hasn’t outright attacked him yet. He wonders what authority Cassandra and Leliana had, to keep him protected so.

“Cassandra.” She only just barely looks over her shoulder at him. The smallest acknowledgement that she is listening. “Was there – did anyone find my bow?” She stops in her tracks, turns to look at him with eyes narrowed.

“Why would you need a weapon?” He doubts he realizes it when her hand drifts back to her sword.

“The demons – Shouldn’t I help you fight?” She shakes her head, opens her mouth to speak. He continues before she can. “The bow has meaning to me. If it –” _survived_ “– is still intact, I’d like to have it. You don’t even have to give me arrows, if you don’t want to. Just the bow. Please,” Mahanon says. She looks at him for a moment, inhales sharply. He follows her to the blacksmith, ignoring the stares he receives on the way.

Cassandra unshackles him, lets the metal fall to the floor. He is quick to wrap hands around his wrists, to touch tender skin. She speaks to some man nearby, and he disappears in a run. When he returns, he carries his bow. She passes it to him, begins to walk almost immediately. She doesn’t give him time to touch the bent wood, feel the stiff string. He traces the carvings upon it, of wolves and halla, other things that have meaning to him but might not to others. A wave of calm washes over him, because of the bow, this one thing that feels like home. He pulls it over himself, so that it sits upon one shoulder, chases after Cassandra.

“The rift is not far,” she says, glancing over at him as he re-appears at her side. “Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach. Be ready.” Soldiers line the path they take, and priests stand at the side of both the injured and the dead. Fallen rock has buried itself in ground and snow, debris from the destruction of the temple. What it must have been, to see the Breach appear. The explosion that created it. The Breach pulses, expands, and the mark happily imitates it.

He hisses with pain as he doubles over, clutching his hand to his chest. He forces himself not to stumble, not to fall. He rights himself and forces his shaking arm to his side, ignoring the light that spews from it. “The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face,” Cassandra says as she waits for him. She does not call attention to the mark and for that, he is grateful.

“How did I survive the blast?” She hesitates with her words, and they appear to roll back and forth in her mouth, before she finally says something.

“They said you… stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious,” Cassandra says. Another wavering pause. “They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was.” Glowing and warm, giving him the curse he cannot hide. The Breach is still spewing rock, spitting anger, destroying the bridge that lies before them. He loses his footing, tumbles down with the bridge, Cassandra at his side. Another glowing thing lands before them, a demon pulling itself up from the burned mark left upon the ground. She draws her sword immediately, her shield, steps before him.

“Stay behind me!” She rushes forth before she’s finished speaking, charging towards the shade. More rock, green rubble, a fiery stain against earth. Another wraith that pulls itself up, claws scratching upon the ground as growls forward, turning its head towards the sky and screeching its freedom. Under the rubble of the bridge, a fallen soldier. A quiver of arrows on his back. He dives towards it, makes silent apologies as he quickly takes the quiver, draws his bow.

He never enjoyed hunting like the others, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it. He puts arrow against string, draws it back. Flying through air, finding its place, embedding itself in the ash of the wraith. It bleeds blackened fog, something wet and dark, then drops to all fours. It begins to crawl towards him, clawed hand after clawed hand, pulling itself forward. Another arrow. Another wound. It smokes with pain, its injury, curls around itself as it shrinks and screams. All that remain of it are ashes.

Cassandra’s blade sinks through and through, that black tar smoking on her blade. She pulls it back, and the wraith dies along with the other. She turns to him, sees the quiver and the arrows he now possesses. She inhales sharply, then shakes her head. “I cannot expect you to be defenseless,” she says, “but I will not appreciate an arrow in the back.”

“Understood,” he says. They travel quickly through the valley, killing any demons that stray along their path. As they draw closer to the Breach, he can feel the mark upon his hand growing hungrier. It practically growls with starvation, eagerness at the sight of a feast. He covers Cassandra’s back as they go, felling shade and wraith before they have a chance to reach her. She is a focused warrior, with discipline and skill.

If he ran, he could likely evade Cassandra while she was pre-occupied with the demons. The soldiers would be more of the same. He knows how to hide, from soldier and demon alike. He doesn’t consider it seriously. If he did not die escaping, then the mark would surely do it for him. Home would not be home if the Breach swallowed it. He could not do his duty at the temple. Even if he wasn’t with them, he would protect his clan. He won’t run from this.

“We’re getting close to the rift. You can hear the fighting,” Cassandra says as they climb a staircase, carved into the side of a hill. Jagged stone and snow-covered trees, careful brick and mortar, a path he’s taken once before. The path to the temple. They crest the rise, and in the midst of ruins, sits a rift. He cannot help but find it mesmerizing – beautiful, in a terrible way. Looking into it was to look past it, see through it and see a world not their own. Green sky, stretching for miles, never ending Fade burrowing into his brain.

Cassandra drags him down into the clearing with her, to stand side by side with soldiers and two others who did not fit in with the uniformed others. An elf, lacking vallaslin, and a dwarf. He notches an arrow quickly, begins to fight. Cassandra roars as she bashes into a wraith with her shield, pushing it away from the elf. He is casting spells, a staff resting easy in his hands. The dwarf stands further back, loading an odd crossbow, firing intently.

When the last demon finally dies, the other elf marches towards him. A hard hand around his wrist, tugging him forward. “Quickly,” he says, “before more come through.” He wrenches his hand upwards, pointing the mark at the rift. It is like being hacked in half. He can feel the rift trying to pull him in, stretching, dragging, and ripping at him through the mark. The mark fights back, pushing and enveloping, twisting it upon itself. It tugs at it, eats it, pulling the rift into itself, and into him.

He hisses, pulls his arm back, holding his fist close to his chest, closing his hand over the mark. There was no tear in the sky anymore. Where once the rift had been, only silence remains. “What did you do?” He asks, his voice weak, his very core throbbing with the digestion of the rift. The mark feels almost smug, slightly satiated but wanting always more, more, more.

“I did nothing. The credit is yours,” he tells him calmly. Mahanon pulls his hand away from his chest slowly. Opening the closed fist, staring at the mark slashed in his palm. He turns his hand towards him.

“You mean this,” he says. The elf stares at the mark, before nodding. He can feel the mark in his fingertips, a steady pulse, and a rhythmic beat.

“Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand,” he says, keeping his eyes on the mark, even as Mahanon drops his hand back to his side. “I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake – and it seems I was correct.” Cassandra sheathes her sword as she walks forward, completing their small circle.

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” she says.

“Possibly. It seems you hold the key to our salvation,” he directs this at Mahanon, finally looking at his face and not just the mark.

“Good to know! Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever,” the dwarf says as he crosses his arms. His crossbow is almost as big as he is, folded and upon his back. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.” He says this as he winks at Cassandra, earning him a casual glare from her. Mahanon nods his head towards him.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live,” he says. He’s chuckling as Cassandra turns away from Varric, shaking her head as she paces, staring at the Breach.

“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept’,” Varric tells him.

“I owe you my thanks,” Mahanon says softly.

“Thank me if we manage to close the Breach without killing you in the process,” Solas says. Mahanon nods, and holds his arm stiffly. It would be only right. Close the Breach, close the rifts, and then face what he might have done. The way the mark hungered for the rift only makes Mahanon sure of his own guilt. He cannot say how he could have done this, how he could have done any of it, but the mark does not give him room to doubt. He has failed in something. Now he must pay.

“Cassandra, you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is no mage. Indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power,” Solas says. It stops every thought racing through his mind. He looks up at Solas, and then over to Cassandra.

“Understood,” she says, “we must get to the forward camp quickly.” Varric gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm as they follow after her.

They find Leliana waiting for them, arms crossed and arguing with a priest. As soon as the priest sets eyes on Mahanon, the look of disgust appears. “As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution. Cassandra puts a hand on Mahanon’s shoulder as she steps forward in front of him, her hands slapping down on the table Roderick stands behind.

“’Order me’? You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!” Her voice drips with contempt, smiling without smiling, an eyebrow raised.

“And you are a thug, but a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!”

“We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know,” Leliana says sharply. It finally dawns on him why their names seemed so familiar. The Divine’s closest confidents. Her Left and Right hands. They would have worked closely, personally, with the Divine. All of their fury, their grief, directed at him while he lay in chains. It would have been easy to kill him while he slept, it would have been easy to keep Solas away from him and let the mark do it for them.

“Justinia is dead! We must elect a replacement, and obey her orders on the matter!”

“Isn’t closing the Breach the more pressing issue?” Mahanon asks. No matter how they felt about him, if Cassandra and Leliana could exercise patience and restraint then surely this man could. It was clear that the primary goal was to close the Breach. Roderick’s hateful gaze turns from Cassandra to him, and he points an accusatory finger.

“You brought this on us in the first place!” Roderick is filled to the brim with hatred. A sort that he would not be able to change. Mahanon only sighs, walks around the table. “Where are you going?”

“To close the Breach,” he says simply. He hears Cassandra snort amusement, Roderick fire back harsh words at her. He doesn’t care. He keeps walks. Solas joins him, moving to walk at his side. The staff he carries is simple, unlike some of the ones he had seen at the Conclave. Many mages with such ornate things, status in the form of the largest focus, the finest paint.

“What clan do you come from _lethallin_?” Solas asks. Mahanon turns to him in surprise. There is no _vallaslin_ upon his face. He had taken him for some circle elf, perhaps even one who had hid in the cities.

“You speak elvish?” A smile quirks at his lips, as if privy to some joke only he knows.

“I do,” he answers, “and you’ve not yet answered my question.”

“I am of Clan Lavellan.”

“ _Aneth ara_ , Lavellan,” Solas says with a polite nod of his head. It is a strange feeling, which mixes in his chest. The clan had always used a blend of whatever elvish they knew, as well as common. To see that here, from the mouth of a stranger, hurts just as much as it warms him. Varric yawns as he holds his hands behind his head, fingers knitting together. He walks at a leisurely pace, humming under his breath as he joins them. Mahanon can hear Cassandra’s harder footsteps moving quickly to catch up.

Leliana chuckles as she stands at the other side of Mahanon. “Roderick was not pleased. An elf, speaking to him in such a way? Ignoring his orders? He is not likely to make friends with you anytime soon,” she tells him.

“If I can close the Breach, then we don’t need to be friends,” he answers.

“Just so,” she smiles. Together they walk through what remains of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Humans which traded often with the clan had brought the news of its discovery. An ancient temple, elvish in nature, containing what remained of a human figurehead. It was a curiosity for the Dalish, and nothing more. The Chantry had set to work immediately restoring the Temple, claiming it as a pilgrimage for its followers. Now it was in ruins once more.

Bodies are charred and bent, forever screaming to the heavens. They received only silence in return. It is eerie, uncomfortable guilt twisting in Mahanon’s gut. Wisps of Fade residue hover around the bodies, such watchers of death, infecting every pore. Cassandra points out the spot where the solders had found him. An empty space, surrounded by corpses. The sick feeling churns again, bile rising in his throat. There are too many bodies to count, some of them burned into stone. What could have done this? Had _he_ done this?

A statue of their Andraste sits in the middle of a cleared courtyard. Her arms outstretched, holding a rift in the palm of her hands. An arm extends for it, reaching upwards and onwards, stretching to the sky, holding back the flood, its fist inside the Breach. Close the rift, hope it extends like a chain towards the Breach. He feels strangely calm, even as his arm shakes, his hand twitching with the pinpricks of pain.

“Motherfucker,” he hears Varric mutter, “red-lyrium.” Crystals of it protrude from the ground, from the walls. It hums with a song that’s closer to screaming, red tendrils flickering over each pocket of it. They glow warmth, the sort of warmth that worms under clothes and under skin, prickling sweat upon his spine.

“Stay away from it,” Cassandra says, pulling gently at Mahanon’s arm, keeping him away from each crystal. The air around them echoes and voices shudder within the silence.

“Bring forth the sacrifice.” A dark, malicious noise, filled with purpose.

“What are we hearing?” Cassandra asks.

“At a guess? The person who created the Breach.” Solas’s answer crashes into him. He knows his own voice, and that is not it. He didn’t do this, _he didn’t do this_. They stand below the rift and the mark sings to it. His whole hand comes alight, brighter than it had ever been. Something in it sparks the rift. The crystals of it, that shattered Fade, twist and croon.

“Someone help me!” Another echo.

“What’s going on here?” This voice he does recognize. Cassandra does as well.

“That was your voice,” she says, “Most Holy called out to you. But…” Whatever thought she meant to complete, she does not get the chance. The rift widens and shakes, presents an image through fog. The Divine, bound and helpless. Before her stands a dark shape, its form clouded sinister. Mahanon watches a ghostly reflection of himself run towards the Divine.

“Run while you can! Warn them!” The Divine tells him.

“We have an intruder,” that unknown entity says. “Kill the elf. Now!” The images crash away into blinding light, ending whatever dream the rift chose to show them.

“You were there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?” There’s such hope in Cassandra’s voice. She moves to stand before him, hands on his shoulders, holding him as though she could shake the truth from him like change from pockets.

“I don’t remember,” he tells her hopelessly, miserably. She pulls her hands away from him as though he has burned her.

“Echoes of what happened here,” Solas says as he walks past them, to stand beneath the rift, to peer upwards into it. “The Fade bleeds into this place.” He shakes his head. “This rift is not sealed, but it is closed… albeit temporarily. I believe that with the mark, the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”

“That means demons.” Cassandra’s jaw is set once again, collecting herself from her earlier outburst. Once more the seeker, the soldier, ready to fight. “Stand ready!” She shouts this to the soldiers nearby, the ones slowly gathering at the edges of the clearing, joining them with swords drawn. Mahanon barely has to gesture with it before the mark screams.

It yanks him forward, an arm reaching out from it to wrap itself around the rift. It takes a few moments before they hear a sound unlike a rising whine. Like metal slowly pulled across rock, a piercing pitch that finally explodes. When the light clears, a roaring demon stands in its wake. Arms wide, mouth open and roaring, the pride demon stretches and breathes in the waking world. Lightning flits around the edges of its scales, crackles between its horns.

Sword in air, a roaring cry, Cassandra leads the charge. Arrows rain down from the edges, careful aim so as to not hit the soldiers who rush forward. Mahanon draws his bow once again, a familiar and comfortable weight in his hands, pulls an arrow from the quiver. Shot, after shot, after shot. He can hear Varric’s crossbow in the distance, that now recognizable thumping. Solas is cool and collected as he unleashes a frozen storm, ice twisting around the demons legs. He slows it for the soldiers, who bury their blades in the soft spots between scales.

There’s sweat on Mahanon’s brow, his arm aching with more than just the effort of firing the bow. He has to take extra care with his shots, the mark too painful, too distracting. He nearly cries with relief when the demon falls to its knees. Arms that lash out, claws that search for flesh. It reaches for any who come near it, but the soldiers are quick to dance out of its way. It dies just as the wraiths did.

He drops to his knees, his body moving forward, the mark dragging him along towards the rift. Screaming as the mark pulls harder, drawing on whatever strength he has left. It pulls him upwards to stand, his toes just barely touching ground as the mark eats at the rift. Tearing at it, desperate, frenzied, please, please, _please_. Teeth that gnaw on his bones, knives burying into his skin. The rift flare, folds, fades and so does he.

He dreams of falling. Upwards towards the Breach, pulled by the mark. He reaches for any to save him, to pull him back down to the ground, to bury the mark in the earth. This time, there is no one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy <3  
> You can always find me to talk at [my tumblr.](http://jawsandbones.tumblr.com/) Cheers!


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